[The Document Foundation – Pootle server] message by Zethan

l10n
#1

I would like to undertake a Southern Quechua (Cusco Quechua specificially) translation. I am not a native or even fluent speaker, but I speak it to a significant degree (and am getting better). It seems to me rather a large gap that one of the most spoken Amerindian languages (with millions of speakers) should have no translation of its own. Also, I would be happy to hand over the lead of such an undertaking to a (committed) native, fluent, or fluenter-than-I speaker if one came along.

#2

Hi Zethan,

First of all, great to see interest in doing Quechua but I must admit (I'm not a LO admin by the way) that I'm slightly worried. Not being a native speaker is not necessarily a problem but not being fully fluent is, to my mind, potentially an issue, speaking from experience. I am just spending untold hours of highly frustrating proofreading over on Ubuntu where over a long time, an enthusiastic but semi-fluent translator has totally messed up the Ubuntu localization.

Now, I'm not suggesting you would do the same but there is a danger that if you're not fluent by your own admission, your translation may be seen as less-than-good by users. Which can have a hugely detrimental effect up the long-term uptake if people get it in their heads that "software in Quechua makes you cringe". So without the input of a fully fluent speaker, I would be a bit worried about the quality issue. Is there a chance maybe of teaming up with someone else? I know Mozilla has a Quechua team, perhaps there's someone there?

Having said that, if you are familiar with the new language packs Microsoft did for Quechua (Win 8 and Office 2013), you may be able to use that as a very effective cribsheet, which would also have the advantage of keeping the terminology consistent, nothing more frustrating in a minoritised language than terminoloigy at loggerheads across products. Are you familiar with those?

leis na dùrachdan,

Michael

14/08/2013 11:02, sgrìobh yachaq@hotmail.co.nz:

#3

Hi :slight_smile:
I think that is a good move but is there any reason the Brasilian Team might have already started on this and somehow not informed us?  It might be worth contacting them to see if they already have some work done that you can add after you have created the 'team' (teams of 1 are often how these things start and then other people join later). 
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#4

Hi Tom
Quechua is not spoken in Brazil. The peruvians may be interested.
Regards

Olivier Hallot
The Document Foundation

#5

Hi :slight_smile:
Has there been any luck in getting this team set-up?

I think the only note of caution was the problem of potentially inaccurate translations but surely even inaccurate is better than none?  Also i suspect that Yachaq is a lot better than he/she is letting on.  If people that have that as a 1st language or know it well see that it's offered and then notice flaws doesn't that often make them feel the urge to correct the problems and maybe even get involved?

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#6

It will be important to code this correctly as quz for Quechua (Cusco-Collao).

Please do not use the less specific qu as it will interfere with
efforts to more correctly capture the richness of Quechua dialects in
future, for example, quy - Quechua (Ayacucho-Chanka)

At Sugar Labs we have been developing L10n in quz (and other Peruvian
languages, such as Aymara), for use by the large OLPC deployment in
Peru.

http://translate.sugarlabs.org/quz/

I am a little concerned about L10n done by a non-native speaker, but
not so much so to say it should not be done. Perhaps it would be best
for Yachaq to begin work; but submit the strings to Pootle as "fuzzy",
pending review by a native speaker. I would be much more comfortable
with such a quality review process.

Yachaq may want to leverage the terminology developed for Sugar's quz
project. One fo the challenges for doing L10n in indigenous langauges
is the need to develop new terminology (neologisms_, and consistency
in an emerging ICT language like Quechua (Cuzco-Collao) is important.

It might also be advisable to solicit hte opinion of an expert like
Amos Batto, co-founder of the Instituto de Lenguas y Literaturas
Andinas-Amazonicas (cc'ed).

BTW, I have a draft glibc locale for quz, it only needs a little more
work before it is ready to submit.

cjl
Sugar Labs Translation Team Coordinator